Monday, February 7, 2011

It's official: Will Friend has replaced Stacy Searels as Georgia's offensive line coach.

Here's a statement from head coach Mark Richt:

"Will has played and coached under some outstanding, nationally-recognized offensive coaches. He comes with a formidable resume of offensive football knowledge and experience. I got to see first hand his work ethic when he was a graduate assistant on our staff and since that time he's developed into a seasoned, top notch offensive line coach."

And here's a statement from Friend (whom you can read about in the previous blog post):

"I'm extremely excited about the opportunity to be the offensive line coach at Georgia. To have the chance to work with one of the top football programs in the country and with Coach Richt and the staff there is a tremendous opportunity for me. When I worked with Coach Richt and the staff as a grad assistant, I had a great experience and I always wondered if I might have the opportunity to come back to Athens. I am looking forward to getting to work."

UGA says Friend's title is just offensive line coach, so he apparently will not have the title of running game coordinator, as Searels did.

Two additional nuggets that UGA included on the release:

- UAB's average offensive output per game during the last two years comprises two of the three best in school history.

- Quarterback Joe Webb, now with the Minnesota Vikings, was the Conference USA player of the year in 2009 after rushing for 2,000 yards and rushing for 1,000 in back-to-back seasons.

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UAB head coach Neil Callaway, in an interview, called Friend "an outsanding coach" and wished him well in Callaway's former position at UGA.

“His dad was a coach. He’s grown up around football his whole life," Callaway said. "He does an outstanding job recruiting and relating to the players. A very smart football player and tough coach.”

One more from Callaway, on Friend replacing Searels, who left for Texas:

“I know Stacy’s a good coach. Everybody’s on his butt but Stacy's a good coach," Callaway said. "Will will do a good job and I’m excited for him and very thankful for the job that he did here.”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Seth Emerson has been covering the SEC and Georgia (on and off) since 2002. He worked at the Albany Herald from 2002-05, then spent five years at The State in Columbia, S.C., covering South Carolina. He returned to Athens in August of 2010, only to find that David Pollack and David Greene were no longer playing for the Bulldogs. Adjustments were made. Emerson is originally from Silver Spring, Md., and graduated from Maryland in 1998 with a degree in journalism and a minor in getting lost on the way to practically everywhere. Then he spent four years at The Washington Post, covering small colleges, a couple NCAA basketball tournaments, and on one glorious day, was yelled at by Tony Kornheiser. It was probably at The Post that he also learned to write in the third person.These days he lives in Athens with his beloved and somewhat wimpy dog, Archie. Together they fight crime at night in northeast Georgia, except on nights there is no crime, in which case they sit at home, sip on white wine and watch reruns of "Mad Men."